Tales from a Young Vet
Caro Handley, Jo Hardy

Tales from a Young Vet

Tales from a Young Vet is the story of Jo Hardy’s final year of training at the Royal Veterinary College. Throughout the year Jo kept a diary charting the whirlwind of back-to-back work placements required of final year students. It was the most challenging stretch of a five-year journey, as Jo and her fellow students took what they’d learned in the classroom and put it to the test in practices, farms, zoos and state of the art animal hospitals. In every single placement they had to test their skills and tackle procedures for the first time – and they couldn’t afford to fail a single one.

Vets have to be physically tough and they need to know how to work with any animal at any time anywhere, from a well-equipped surgery to a dirty barn. It’s a huge amount of knowledge, working with patients who can’t describe how they’re feeling.

Jo had to learn to do rectal pregnancy checks on cows, to spot worms in ponies, to castrate pigs, to anaesthetize a dog with a heart murmur, to look after a pony in intensive care, to worm a monitor lizard and to put a contraceptive implant into a monkey.

And then there were the owners; the tough guy who sobbed when his dog was diagnosed with cancer, the fusspot who treated his greyhound like a child, the woman who accidentally poked her dog in the eye and the farmer who loved his cows as much as any owner loves a pet.  

Book Details:

  • Author: Caro Handley, , Jo Hardy
  • Published Year: 2015
  • Rights Sold
    • UK: Harper Collins
Caro Handley,

Caro Handley,

Caro began as a local newspaper reporter and went on to work for Woman, the Daily Mail, the Sunday Express magazine - where she ghosted a column for a rising young star, Jonathan Ross - and Good Housekeeping, where she was agony aunt. After a stint freelancing for various magazines she began ghost writing in 2000 when lifecoach Fiona Harrold asked her to help with a book. The result was Be Your Own Life Coach which was translated into 15 languages and is still in print. Over the next couple of years Caro made the shift from feature writing to ghost writing and since then she has colla...
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Jo Hardy

Jo Hardy

Jo Hardy studied to become a vet at the Royal Veterinary College. After the most demanding 5 years of her life, she graduated with honours in 2014. However her last year in vet school was far from normal. Day in, day out, she had a film crew with her filming the highs and lows she was experiencing, as well as the heartwarming animal cases that came and went from her life, for BBC 2’s “Young Vets” series. In August 2014, the 10 part series was aired on national television and was met with a fantastic response from television critics and the general public alike. In Jo&rs...
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